Haim Ginott Quotes

Happiness… is not a destination: it is a manner of traveling. Happiness is not an end in itself. It is a by-product of working, playing, loving and living.

If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others.

If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.

Treat a child as though he already is the person he’s capable of becoming.

I’ve come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a student’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a student humanized or de-humanized.

A modern teacher educates children to value their emotions.

To be himself, one neeeds to be free from the pressure of evaluative praise

Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn’t have anything to do with it.

Parenthood is an endless series of small events, periodic conflicts, and sudden crises which call for a response. The response is not without consequence: it affects personality for better or for worse.

Many teenagers are tormented by terrors they deem private and personal. They do not know that their anxieties and doubts are universal.

Adolescence can be a time of turmoil and turbulence, of stress and storm. Rebellion against authority and against convention is to be expected and tolerated for the sake of learning and growth.

When a child hits a child, we call it aggression. When a child hits an adult, we call it hostility. When an adult hits an adult, we call it assault. When an adult hits a child, we call it discipline.